I feel like I’m coming up for a short breath after being submerged for a really long time, knowing that I’m shortly going to dive back down. I guess this is what it must feel like to be a whale, if a whale lived in a vast ocean of work instead of water.

The things under which I’ve been submerged recently include, in no particular order:

finishing up the course I was teaching this semester, including grading all the final assignments, calculating participation grades for the semester, and submitting final grades to the school

completing revisions for the new edition of my textbook1, including proofing all the revisions we did

my actual day job, which is getting crazy busy as a Really Big Thing is about to happen and we have to be ready for it

But the textbook revisions and the marking are all done now, and those were two really time-consuming things that I was having to fit into my weekends and evenings, and the time available for working in the evenings and on the weekends were abbreviated due to the fact that I’m dedicated to doing my three days a week at the gym (which really is a big part of what helps me decompress when I’m so busy!) and I’ve been working longer than normal hours at my actual day job, due to all the work of preparing for the aforementioned Really Big Thing. So now I feel like I have a few days where I can actually breathe. By which I mean “write a blog post about how busy I’ve been”.

Of course, this is just a short reprieve, as I’m about to dive back down into the deep ocean that is work craziness. As, I mentioned above there is a Really Big Thing happening at work soon. This Really Big Thing will involve my team (a) providing data to monitor the progress and/or outcomes (good or bad) of said Really Big Thing (translation: lots of people will be wanting to see the data we produce daily) and (b) having to provide support 12 hours a day, 7 days a week until such time as the Really Big Thing settles down into just a Big Thing and we can go back to our regular work days and hours. Which means that I’ll be working some early mornings and some weekends and also, since I’m the lead of the team, should any crises happen, I could potentially be called even when I’m not on site. All that stuff happens starting April 28th.

Also, I’m going to have some house guests around this same time! Dr. Dan and one of his students will be staying with me from May 2-8, as they will be in town for important work things, and then from May 8-13, my mom and my Aunt Wendy will be staying with me as my Aunt has an important conference to attend and my mom is coming along to visit. I’m very excited to see all of them, as I think it will be good for me to get some quality time with family & friends to keep me grounded when I’m not at the hospital doing my Really Big Things.

Image Credit: Whale illustration posted by Steve on Flickr with a Creative Commons license and whale tail photo posted by Vilmos Vincze on Flickr with a Creative Commons license.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that we are putting out a new edition. The original came out in 2012, which is like a million years ago in textbook years, so it was due. Nutrition is still a pretty young field, so there were a fair amount of things to update! It should be ready by the end of the month and everyone should buy a copy or 12. [↩]

Which I was just a co-investigator on, so I’m not saying I did the most work on it; was it was a team effort of a bunch of people and lead by someone else, but it still took up some time. [↩]

Tonight was my last class of the course I’m teaching this semester. On my drive home from campus I was a little sad, because I know that I’ll not see any of my students again1! Despite having a class of 90 students, I actually got to know a fair number of them through in class discussion and chats on the break and after class.

The class is an intro to business concepts for students in food, nutrition, & health majors. The major assignment is writing a business plan together and we spent the last two classes having student presentations – which are Dragons’ Den style pitches where the students pretend they are pitching their business plans to room full of investors. Like last year, I was blown away by the creativity of both their business ideas and by their presentations, by the tough questions the students asked each other, and how much work and thought had gone into these projects, as evidenced by how well they dealt with those tough questions.

While I will definitely miss the students, I won’t be sad about getting my Tuesday nights back. And my Monday nights (when I did class prep). And my weekends (when I also did class prep). Teaching a class is a freaking lot of work. Well, once the marking gets wrapped up, that is.

The trials and tribulations of being a sessional instructor who only teaches this one, fourth year course in that Faculty. [↩]

Tonight was the last class of the course I’m teaching this semester. Since it was my first time teaching this class, it was a crazy amount of work and I am so, so, so, so, so, so tired. But I have to say that I really enjoyed teaching this class! The material leant itself well to active learning – though I definitely want to increase the amount of activities and decrease the amount of me-as-a-talking-head even more next year. The students did their class presentations this week and last and they were excellent – they really went above and beyond to produce some stellar work. A few students stayed behind after class to chat with me – they said that they agreed that more in-class activities would be better and even had some ideas for possible activities. And they said that they got a lot out of the class, as it was so different from any of their other classes, and that they found the little extras (like stories I told that brought the concepts into real life situations and videos I shared that touched on the concepts we were learning) really added some depth to the class, and that they really appreciated the work I’d put into it. That’s the kind of feedback that puts a smile on this very tired instructor’s face!

In class today, I was demonstrating a method of data collection formally called “Dotmocracy” (but now being referred to as “Idea Ratings Sheets”). The basic premise is that you are looking to get a group to rate ideas and you have them write their ideas on a sheet and then everyone in the group can rate it from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” – and they can also add comments about strengths or weaknesses of the idea. For this demo, the class decided that the topic would be “What is the best thing to do over the Christmas holidays?” and some of the ideas were things like “Spend time with family”, “Eat delicious foods”, “Catch up on TV”, etc.

After everyone did the rating, we checked out the results. And by far the best comment was on this one, where the idea of the best thing to do over the Christmas holidays is “Binge watching Netflix”:

And the comment that one student wrote on it:

“You forgot the “chill””.

And that explains why tonight I said a phrase that I never anticipated saying as a university professor in response to a student’s question about what a concept means: “You’ll have to Google “Netflix and chill””.

I posted this on Twitter the other day, but I figured I’d post it here so that I’ll be able to find it again when I want to. Twitter is like a black hole that all my various witty remarks disappear into, never to be seen again. [↩]

As detailed in a previous posting, Nov 16 marks the anniversary of the day I received my PhD, according to my transcript. The convocation ceremony for my PhD was Nov 22, 2006 and my current theory1 is that Nov 16 marks the day that Senate voted to approve candidates for convocation – but I based that entirely on speculation.

At any rate, I am commemorating this, my 7th PhDiversary, in the traditional fashion, by posting this picture of a Tumbeast in a puffy PhD hat:

And speaking of the puffy hat, it will soon be making its reappearance in my life as I have a grad photo session booked for Nov 252 and, as detailed in a previous posting, I will be yet again donning the pink robe and puffy hat of a UBC PhDer for that photo, as well as for the convocation ceremony next spring. Long live the puffy hat!

I’m actually dreading this a bit, as I don’t really want to see how much older and fatter I’m going to look in these photos compared to the ones that were taken in the same robe and hat 7 years ago! [↩]

I’ve long been absentminded, but I can now add “Professor” on to that, for, as you will already know if you are linked in to me on Linked In, I have a shiny new title to add to my resume: Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health Science at Simon Fraser University.

Adjunct Professor, unlike the regular kind, is a title that signifies that one is associated with the university through their professional work. For me, that includes collaborating with researchers, supervising practicum students, and hopefully doing some teaching as well1. So I’m not quitting my day job, but rather awesome-ifying it2 as one of the things that I really like to do is bridge the academic world with the world of health services, and this title signifies that bridge.

Dr. Snow, Absentminded Professor

I don’t have anything set up teaching-wise as of yet, but I have some ideas! [↩]

The core part of my MBA program involves two major projects. The first one is a business simulation using something caled Capsim, which we are partway through, and the second one is to write a business plan.

But before writing a business plan, one needs to have an idea for a business! This is where you come in, gentle reader. We are at the stage where we have to think of a business opportunity. Essentially, we want to find a “need” that isn’t being met by any currently existing business – an unmet need that we can then build a business around. At this point, we are wanting to generate as many ideas as possible – the more creative, the better! We have a few ideas, but I thought I’d check in with you – some “crowdsourcing,” if you will – to expand our thought processes.

So, do you have an unmet need? What really bugs you and makes you think “Why doesn’t someone solve this problem for me?

So last week I had a bit of a panic about this whole MBA thing. Thoughts like “What am I getting myself into?” were followed up by “I’m getting in waaaay over my head!” and “You know what would be a lot easier than doing this? Not doing this.” And then I realized that I have had the *exact* same feeling of panic – and thought the *exact* same panicky thoughts – before. This is the exact same way that I felt in the weeks leading up to the Longest Game for Cystic Fibrosis. When it started to get close, it started to get real. I realized what a monumental thing I was about to embark on – and I was scared. I started to doubt my ability to survive a 10 day long game of hockey. And now that the start of school is getting real, I’m having the same feelings. I knew when I decided to apply to the program that, if I got in, I’d be spending *a lot* of time in class and *a lot* of time doing homework. I knew that I would have to make some changes to my life – prioritizing school and eliminating some of the other things that I do1. But now that my first classes are just a few weeks away – now that I’m getting schedules and textbook lists and workshop syllabi – it’s hitting me that I’m about to embark on a pretty monumental thing – and I’m a bit scared.

Of course, I did survive my 10-day long hockey game. And not only did I survive it, but it is one the best things I have ever done in my whole life. I made a tonne of amazing friends, I proved to myself that I could last through something that shouldn’t even be humanly possible, I had fun2, I set a world record, and, most importantly, I helped raise lots of awareness and money for Cystic Fibrosis. And remembering that helps ease my panic now, because I know that I can do this too. Will it be a lot of work? Hells yeah it will. Will it take sacrifice? You betcha! But will it be worth it? I have no doubt in my mind. It’s going to be a wild ride, but one that I think I’m ready for!

But making sure not to go completely overboard – balance is really important to me [↩]

Even through the pain and the sleep deprivation, it was a lot of fun! [↩]

Now, before you all going telling me (again) that I’m a Crazyface McGee, it’s merely an intensive 28-month, part-time program that I’ll do while still working full-time and that costs $41K+. You may now all call me crazy. But only half crazy, really, because of the aforementioned bucketloads of money.

Not the actual pile of money I’ll be getting. Mine will be Canadian.

After the crushing level of student debt I incurred to get my first three degrees, I swore I’d never borrow another penny for education again, but when I found out about the scholarship to do an MBA, it was really too good of an opportunity to pass up. Especially given that I actually won the scholarship!

I just found out about my offer of admission last week, celebrated on Friday with a fine wine and a three-year-old cheese, both of which I picked up in Oregon in the summer and have been saving for just such a momentous occasion, and paid my tuition fee deposit yesterday. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what this time commitment will mean for my life and a lot of planning of how I’ll get myself organized to juggle my life, work, and school, but the reality of the situation is really starting to sink in now. Expect some think-y blog postings about such topics over the next little while – please bear with me! Or, you know, tell me I’m crazy.